The apparitions
of the Virgin Mary at Fatima Portugal are intimately tied to the Islamic
world. The two great women of Islam are the Virgin Mary of Nazareth and
Mohammed's daughter, named Fatima. After the death of his daughter,
Fatima, Mohammed wrote: "Thou shalt be the most blessed of all the women
in Paradise, after Mary". The village itself in Portugal called
Fatima was named such by a Christian leader who married a Muslim maiden named
after Mohammed's daughter.

When Pope John
Paul II was almost killed in Saint Peter's Square by an extremist, some
interpreted it as the fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by the young seer of
Fatima. It did not actually fulfill the words of the prophecy and so the
terrible event of 1981, happening, indeed, as it did on May 13, the feast of
Our Lady of Fatima, could therefore be interpreted only as a foreshadowing or
warning, if you will, of the eventual real fulfillment of the prophecy.

The Holy
Father, Benedict XVI, after his controversial speech at the Germany University,
fortunately had an opportunity to re-affirm the Church's important teaching
regarding the religion of the Muslims:

"The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God,

living
and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven

and
earth, Who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to

even
His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam

takes
pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge

Jesus
as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin

Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await
the

day of
judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been

raised
up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God

especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting"

We have to add
as well, that despite the accusation of violence so often made against Muslim
extremists, they are not guilty of the of terrible slaughter of innocent life
in the womb that occurs with such lack of scruples throughout the western
world. Likewise in Islamic countries they maintain a high respect for the
dignity of true marriage between a man and a women.

What is to be
feared, however, is that the price of this sad controversy may, in the end,
cost the Pope his life, and it seems all the more possible, since the, as yet
unfulfilled, prophecy of the seer of Fatima would in fact then, according to
the letter, be fulfilled.

We must, as
Jacinta so often pleaded: "Pray for the Holy Father", and as Our Lady
of Fatima requested at each apparition: "Pray the Rosary every day".